1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to an apparatus and method for call routing within a telecommunications environment. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for a local routing system enabling a local exchange carrier to route network traffic according to a local service provider's preferences.
2. Background and Material Information
Congress enacted the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as part of an effort to foster competition in the local telephone industry. Interpretations and enforcement of key portions of the Act were placed in the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC quickly set forth regulations which required incumbent local exchange carriers (LECs) to allow competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs, also often referred to as local service providers or LSPs) to utilize the LEC's networks to establish a market presence in a region while the CLEC built its own physical network. The FCC rulings required LECs to make their network components available using a resale approach in which the CLEC purchases existing service bundles from the LEC and resells those bundles to the CLEC's customers or an unbundled approach, in which the CLEC purchases individual service components from the LEC, recombines those elements in its own (possibly distinct) service bundles, sells those rebundled services to its customers, and pays the LEC for the usage of the unbundled components.
A final FCC ruling required LECs to provide the same routing flexibility for selected types of calls (local calls, operator calls, and directory assistance calls) to CLECs as it utilizes for its own service offerings for both resale and unbundled customers.
In the existing telephone network, the routing of calls and the billing for toll charges and usage charges is largely determined by special translations referred to as line class codes (LCCs). LCCs are used to associate a variety of other translations into a class of service which provides a particular local/toll calling scope and specifies where special call types such as operator or directory assistance are routed. The LCCs can also block selected types of calls (900, 1+toll, international, etc.).
The large number of special calling plans, call restrictions, and permutations of these combinations requires a large number (several hundred, in most cases) of LCCs to be translated in each LEC switch. In order to meet FCC requirements to provide CLECs the same dialing plans offered by the LEC with alternate routing and/or usage sensitive billing, existing LCC translations could be duplicated and altered as required. However, such an approach would be labor intensive, error prone, and cost prohibitive. In some cases, attempting to duplicate existing LCCs would exhaust the serving switch's available supply of LCC translations.
To avoid the problems associated with using LCC translations to meet FCC requirements, a system is need which can re-use existing LCC translations to enforce available dialing plans but override the routing of specific call types as requested by a CLEC, and create appropriate usage bill records for calls involving subscribers served by unbundled network elements. Furthermore, it is desirable to perform this additional call processing in a centralized system to allow local service providers to change their preferences without requiring manual chances in hundreds of decentralized switches.